This year I tried 701 new perfumes. To keep that in perspective, it is about 30% of all new perfume released in 2018. The Top 25 below represents the best 3.6% of what I encountered this year

The Top 5 (Perfume of the Year Candidates)

5. Cartier Carat– The best mainstream release of 2018 it is a celebration of the skill of Cartier in-house perfumer Mathilde Laurent. It is simply described as a transparent formula. What Mme Laurent put in the bottle was a faceted floral jewel which changed as you looked at each facet. A kaleidoscopic perfume that helped me embrace the potential of the transparent trend which is here to stay in perfume.

4. Providence Perfume Co. Vientiane– Independent perfumer Charna Ethier fused a jasmine rice tincture to a tower of sandalwood. It resulted in a perfume which gave me new insight into one of the most venerable notes in perfumery. It also is a testament to Ms. Ethier’s skill to shine a light into those spaces.

3.April Aromatics Irisistible– This is the culmination of all of the efforts perfumer Tanja Bochnig has produced over the years for her April Aromatics brand. Each release over the last couple of years has been better than the last. Irisistible will be a perfume Fr. Bochnig will find difficult to top. A floral rainbow with a rooty iris as the most brilliant band of color.

2. Neela Vermeire Creations Niral– Neela Vermeire has successfully found the perfume place where her Indian and French sensibilities overlap. It has produced one of the best independent perfume collections on the market. Mme Vermeire has worked exclusively with perfumer Bertrnad Duchaufour. For Niral they undertook the concept of capturing Tussar silk as a perfume. It is something I think could only have been made by a creative director and perfumer who have been working together for years. Niral flows in shimmering silken waves of iris that slither through the air opulently.

Aftelier Alchemy– Mandy Aftel looked back to her beginning which allowed Alchemy to confirm her vision has never strayed.

aromaM Geisha Botan– Maria McElroy composed a spring floral featuring peony; I wish more did it like this.

Avon Velvet– Best Bang for the Buck perfume on the list. Perfumer Gabriela Chelariu proves it’s the perfumer and not the ingredients in a lush fig-rose-patchouli perfume that smells like it belongs on the top shelf.

Blackbird Y06-S– Nicole Miller produced an envelope-pushing skanky jasmine and banana fragrance which I can’t forget.

Commodity Nectar– This brand has become the most reliable economical brand by allowing perfumers the freedom to create as they wish. Mathieu Nardin used that to create a summery neroli

Pekji Zeybek– The best new brand of 2018 goes to Pekji from Omer Ipecki. A strong debut collection of five perfumes is headed by this abstract perfume vision of the horse barn.

strangeloveNYC lostinflowers– Creative director Elizabeth Gaynes came home from a trip to India with a champaca extract called “joy oil”. When she asked perfumer Christophe Laudamiel to use it in a perfume it gave me a lot of joy.

Zoologist Tyrannosaurus Rex– There is a part of me that thinks creative director Victor Wong and perfumer Antonio Gardoni came up with the idea of a prehistoric jungle on fire as a joke. The perfume is no joke. It is a completely original perfume.

An extra 3.5%; or the 23 perfumes which just missed being on the list above

2018 was a year in which the perfume companies more firmly tuned their fragrances towards a younger generation. I tried 701 new perfume releases this past year. If there was one dominant trend it was towards transparent styles; especially in the mainstream sector. It also meant simpler constructs using three to five ingredients. The difficulty I had with this is the great majority of these perfumes fell apart with any scrutiny. Too often transparent minimalism could be summarized succinctly as insipid. Slightly more charitable it was a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes as the brands tried to sell more and more “nothing there” product. The best (worst?) example was the twenty-five releases, at one time, from clothing brand H&M. They didn’t even disguise their attempt to push out a wave of poorly made fragrance. It was a bad joke which made me wish I had only tried 676 new perfumes this year.

Transparent New Clothes for The Emperor

I have had some problems embracing the whole trend because I believe its success requires a very skilled perfumer. Proof of that would come early in the fall with the release of Cartier Carat as in-house perfumer Mathilde Laurent produced a magnificently kinetic transparent floral. It would be followed by the McQueen Collection of soliflore-like constructions employing some of the best perfumers to show the potential of this style of perfume making.

Another emerging trend is the rise of gourmand style perfumes. This might be the last genre of fragrance which has not been terribly overexposed. It means it is fertile ground for brands to make a statement. It also is a style which adapts well to the transparency. Jovoy Remember Me by perfumer Cecile Zarokian was an audacious attempt to push the form forward. I think we will see a spectacular contemporary gourmand soon.

If the perceived banality of the mainstream releases was getting me down the independent perfumers were here to rescue me. They were ready to give me the jump start I needed to throw off my malaise.

Victor Wong of Zoologist Perfumes would oversee the funk of Hyrax with perfumer Sven Pritzkoleit and the prehistoric jungle fire of Tyrannosaurus Rex by perfumer Antonio Gardoni.

Nicole Miller of Blackbird sent out the skanky banana of Y06-S and the oddly compelling plum gourmand Anemone.

Amber Jobin of Aether Arts Perfume created The AI Series which was experimental perfumery of the highest order.

Hiram Green produced a birch tar overload in Hyde a complete opposite of the enticing tobacco and honey of Slowdive.

Of course, 2018 ended with the loss of one of the great independent perfumers, Vero Kern. As that happened, I was reminded of the old saying “when a door closes a window opens”. The window might be looking toward Turkish perfumer Omer Ipecki and his Pekji brand. Mr. Ipecki like Fr. Kern took years to perfect his perfumes before releasing them. He listened to his own artistic vision while displaying an independent swagger. I know I’m laying a large burden on Mr. Ipecki’s shoulders I am hopeful he will bear it with good humor.

If there was a disappointment it was from the niche brands. Many of them safely stayed within their well-trodden lanes. I feel somewhat churlish for saying this because there were many I liked, but very few of them tried anything different. As I looked back it seemed like too many of the brands found a successful space which they continued within. As I think will become apparent over the next two days there were few which stood out.

All independent perfumers carry their own unique inspiration into their fragrances. Amber Jobin’s inspiration is renewed every year when she attends the Burning Man festival. As her part of the community she has a stand called “The Olfactorium” where she dispenses a perfume designed for each year’s theme called Burner Perfume. I came to know her through Burner Perfume No. 2 A Roll in the Grass. She has been one of the most wondrously imaginative perfumers because of this. That was on full display in last year’s Touchstone where she made a perfume out of our smartphone. This year’s overall theme at Burning Man was “I, Robot”. This led to not one but three Burner perfumes for her Aether Arts Perfume brand which she calls “The AI Series”.

Amber Jobin at The Olfactorium

In her accompanying notes Ms. Jobin mentions she has been fascinated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and was waiting for an opportunity to interpret it as a perfume. As I smelled each of her three perfumes, they felt like the evolution of our smartphones which means to me they are the next generation of what Ms. Jobin began in Touchstone.

Burner Perfume No. 9A Machine Intelligence– This is meant to capture the processes which happen within the shell. It is made up of three accords. First comes a metallic accord combined with the smell of electricity as it flows through circuits. On top of this Ms. Jobin creates an expansive aether accord. It has a peek-a-boo effect as it seems to dart in and out of the metal and electricity. This is the most fragile perfume Ms. Jobin has ever made. It is appropriate as it captures something as ephemeral as a thought coming together.

Burner Perfume No. 9B Android– This is Ms. Jobin’s idea of what we will rely on when AI advances so that the artificial is not able to be discerned visually. She thinks we will be able to use our nose. Android is what she thinks these beings will smell like. First it is the power source accord from 9A, but she has added something musky to it to make it a richer version. It is matched with the smell of the plastics and resins made to look like skin along with a very synthetic accord meant to represent the fluids running through the interior of the robot.

Burner Perfume No. 9C Synthetic Sex– This perfume is the idea of what AI might mean to our most personal interaction, sex. As we become more isolated in our AI cocoons, do we lose the humanity over the physical contact. To do this Ms. Jobin tweaks that metallic power source accord by making this one a bit spikier along with a processed air accord she calls “virtual space”. It reminded me of the smell of entering a room where the air is filtered to death. It is chilly, impersonal, and isolating. The only warmth is that electrical accord. It ends with the release of orgasm under these circumstances leaving a funky musky accord lying inside a hermetically sealed room.

Over the past year and a half Ms. Jobin has really been influenced by her artistic impulses. The perfumes since the release of Touchstone show an artist at work. The AI Series is another in that line of creativity proving there is nothing artificial about Ms. Jobin’s intelligent perfumery.

Disclosure: this review is based on samples provided by Aether Arts Perfume.